Three Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets arrived in Finland to temporarily support the United States-led exercise Swift Response and contribute to training missions in Estonia. Forward deployed under NATO’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept which describes projecting a fighter jet capability with a small – in this case 50-strong – support detachment, the Eurofighter Typhoon jets are poised to take part in sorties out of Tikkakoski, Finland. The three Typhoon jets conducted the ACE deployment while supporting NATO enhanced Air Policing missions in Romania.
“We’re taking part in a number of training sorties which allows us to perform an agile combat employment demonstrating the UK’s capability to quickly move air assets around to where they’re most needed at any given time and return quickly onto the original tasking. It’s exciting to be a part of such a large multinational NATO-led exercise particularly working here with the Finnish our newest NATO Allies. They’ve been more than welcoming; they’ve made us feel very welcome here and their professionalism has enabled us to have a smooth deployment so far,” said Squadron Leader Nick Morrison-Smith, Detachment Commander for the RAF participation in exercise Swift Response.
The US-led exercise Swift Response is part of the NATO Steadfast Defender exercise series. Steadfast Defender encompasses Allied forces multi-domain enablement and deployment of forces and demonstrates NATO’s readiness to defend all Allies. Swift Response 24 involves approximately 3,650 U.S. and 9,500 multinational participants from 16 Allies. It is a dynamic U.S. Army Europe & Africa-led exercise focused on Allied airborne forces’ ability to quickly and effectively respond to crises as an interoperable, multi-national team.
The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, supersonic, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo that conducts the majority of the project through a joint holding company, Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH. The Eurofighter Typhoon is a highly agile aircraft, designed to be an effective dogfighter in combat. Later production aircraft have been increasingly better equipped to undertake air-to-surface strike missions and to be compatible with an increasing number of different armaments and equipment, including Storm Shadow, Brimstone and Marte ER missiles.
